KISS MY JACUZZI — MUSTANG! / FEENDS / O! / BLUE TILE LOUNGE / CHRIS HANN — Shenton Park, Friday 22nd April
Party at Club 96, then down to the rock awards show where everyone’s a winner, baby.Chris Hann of the Wooden Fische gave a short solo set to start, and it worked fine. Blue Tile Lounge are a band I’ve never gotten into a whole lot. Actually, I can’t stand ’em. REM as slackers. Not my scene. I was in the front bar. (Let’s just pause for a moment and thank the front bars of this world.) Lots of people I know disagree, though lots of people I know agree.O! were bound to be interesting, seeing as Nick seemed to have been alcoholically transported to another world prior to this show (you shoulda seen him on the verandah of 96) and Bill was on his way there ... they kept it together fine ... ish. “Outskirts” (first on the tape) is my favourite O! song, by the way.
The Feends are not quite the greatest band in the world, but they know it so that’s okay. Cheat-markers-on-the-keyboard rock’n’roll is the new apocalypse. Remember: it’s just a thin line between ninety-nine percent pose on stage and the full one hundred. I’ve thought Samantha Wilson was a natural-born pop babe star since I’ve known her, so it’s good to see it coming true.Mustang! played their second show since John Campbell rejoined and they were a lot more together. Took till the third song or so (second was one of John’s anal one-chord art-rock numbers that requires absolute precision timing and probably sheet music ... but you could tell it was a great song), but they cooked from then on. The new songs are killers. Three working vocalists is great too. The performance wasn’t one hundred per cent, but it was certainly at least ninety and that’s enough when the songs are this good.

Also interesting is the Perth News #19 bit in which Ross Chisholm writes bios for Perth bands of the time, including all the Jacuzzis. Mention is made elsewhere in party fears of Chisholm reportedly working on his next Perth band family tree, being the Jacuzzi family tree. Sadly to my knowledge this never saw the light of day. Plenty more at Party Fears on earlier Perth music.